Lifetimes
by ericajanebarry
Summary: "And I shall get to know you/In these lifetimes/In awe and wonder/On down through the years." Inspired by the song "Lifetimes" by Van Morrison. An early morning interlude in the married life of the Carsons. Rated 'T' more for what is implied than for what is described.


**A/N: Chelsie fluff. The first of several song-inspired fic ideas to make it to print. A word or two in review would be lovely!**

* * *

 _And I shall get to know you  
_ _In these lifetimes  
_ _In awe and wonder  
_ _On down through the years  
_ _The nighttime angel spreads her wings around me  
_ _I feel the silence  
_ _And my doubts are cleared_

 _Those lifetimes  
_ _So many lifetimes  
_ _With you  
_ _~Van Morrison, "Lifetimes"_

* * *

The hour is early, the air in the room frigid by the feel of it on her nose and cheeks. She should get up and stoke the fire so that the floors aren't like walking on ice when they rise.

She slides silently out of bed, pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle the gasp that emits when her feet touch the hardwood. Shuffling into her slippers, she puts two logs and a handful of kindling on the fire and strikes a match. In a matter of minutes, she's got a small blaze going and she pauses to warm her hands for a moment. Perhaps it's the amber glow of the firelight or the fragrance of wood smoke and of oak and cherry burning in the hearth. Or could it be the quiet; the lull of pre-dawn morning, hill and vale still deep in slumber?

Whatever it is, it harkens back to feelings of warmth and comfort, of happiness. Of home.

She takes a few steps back toward the bed and pauses once more. _Home._ In ways both metaphorical and literal and after a lifetime lived beneath the roofs of others, she has a home at last. Within the walls of this humble cottage there is laughter and song; there are tears and sorrows. This house has seen the gaiety of friends gathered in celebration and the quiet closeness of slow dances in the kitchen by the light of the gas lamp.

There is a rustling and a snuffling from the bed and she moves closer to the source of the movement, the sound. Her love lies there, his features unguarded in sleep. She watches as his arm snakes out from beneath the blankets. He has registered her absence beside him and his brow furrows. She suppresses a giggle, doffs her slippers and slides beneath the covers. He lies on his back and she turns on her side, her arm going round him. Her touch is all it takes to soothe him and he sighs in contentment as her palm comes to rest over his heart.

She doesn't know how she lived so long without this. One decision altered along the course of her life, or of his, and they'd have missed it altogether. As it was they danced round one another for an age; the best kind of friends with hearts full of love, neither one daring to upset what they had and risk losing it all.

When the winds of change began to blow about them, they chose to bend. Away from the tried and true, the safe and secure and toward the very thing each of their hearts beat for.

And now she is his. He is hers. To have and to hold. It's wondrous, she thinks: holding him. It feels at once new, so new, and yet as old as time itself. The first time he kissed her she knew how it would feel before his lips brushed hers, and when she hummed against his mouth it was because it felt exactly like she had known it would.

As she casts her memory back he shifts beside her, mumbling something like, "Els—." With a grin, she scoots closer, pushing against his calf with her toes to gain leverage, and presses a kiss to the line of his jaw. If she lingers a bit it's because it is such a luxury - kissing him at all, but particularly in that spot because it's one she cannot reach when they are upright.

He gives another happy sigh at the touch of her lips and she raises herself up on an elbow to look at him. That single unruly lock of hair that possesses a mind of its own (to his great consternation) has flopped over his forehead. His hair looks so soft without the pomade that she cannot resist running her fingers through it, mesmerized by the strands of silver that stand out in the firelight. His considerable brows frame his face so differently in repose to the way they do in the light of day, and as his lashes fan out against his cheeks she realizes just how long they are. He is all soft; approachable and touchable and serene. _He is a beautiful man_ , she thinks, and then nearly fails to swallow another giggle. That observation is one she will keep to herself … wouldn't he go through the roof if he were to hear it said that anyone thought of _Charles Carson_ as beautiful!

Marriage is, by turns, everything and nothing like she imagined it would be. She had assumed that with being a wife there came a great sense of duty and of carrying a burden. _Must respect the husband. Must keep a well-ordered and tidy home. Must make oneself_ _ **available**_ _._

The last one makes her nearly hoot with laughter. As it is she manages to hold back the noise, but she can't prevent the shaking of her shoulders. It's becoming inevitable: she's going to wake him.

 _Settle down now,_ she chides herself, _the man will think he's married a loony!_

But the fact of the matter is that it _is_ humorous when she thinks about how much she fretted over _that side of things_ prior to the wedding and how utterly wonderful it has turned out to be; how well worth a lifetime's wait it was.

Marriage to Charles Carson is far less drudgery and infinitely more joy than she anticipated. While she had always known him to be kind; gentle by turns and always concerned with her well-being, she had also watched him give many a dressing-down over the years, and she recalls a running joke between herself and Beryl, the implications of which were that hell hath no fury like a butler scorned.

But Charles, the husband, possesses very little at all of the ire of Carson, the butler. And though he is a man beholden to tradition in so many ways, he has never - save for the kerfuffle over her cooking early on - regarded himself as anything less than an equal participant in the keeping of their home. He now cooks just as often as she, and he is always the one to fix breakfast on Saturdays whilst she lies in with her reading.

They are still learning how to live with one another, and there've been some bumps along the road to be sure. But if the fact that she puts the silver into the drawer before it's completely dry rankles him or if his constant rearranging of her desktop vexes her, they can look past each other's shortcomings because there is a prevailing sense of peace that rules their lives now.

 **oOoOo**

She has got rather caught up in her musings, for when he leans up to kiss her mouth she gasps in surprise. She ends up half in his lap, her hands clutching his forearms.

"Charles, I—" she sputters, quieted by his lips upon hers as he kisses her again. His hands pull her close, _closer_ , until she sits across his legs.

"Good morning," he rumbles as one of his hands splays across the small of her back and the fingers of the other trail through her hair. She closes her eyes against the rush of sensation, of emotion brought on by his touch. His hands are so strong. It was one of her first observations of him when they met so very many years ago. _A lifetime ago,_ she thinks. They are still strong, even now.

 _Even now._ She doesn't realize she has mouthed the words until he cups her cheek in his hand.

"What was that, lass? I didn't hear you."

"Hmm?" She looks into his eyes, focusing once more upon the present. "I'm sorry, love. You caught me in the midst of wool-gathering. Good morning." She kisses him this time, and he hums his approval, the sound reverberating through her chest as she presses closer.

"How long have you been awake?" he asks. His breath is warm on her face, the side of her neck. She muses that it's a good job she's sat down or her knees would have given out. Somehow she always knew that his physicality, his nearness, would affect her like this, but it is one of so many instances whereby reality far outstrips her imagination.

"Going on an hour, I should think. The fire went out and I wanted to be sure it was warm by the time we were up and about."

"And after that?" he asks, taking advantage of their positions to nip at the pulse point in her throat. "Couldn't you sleep?" His thumb moves in circles against the small of her back and her hands ball into fists. She was never one to swoon, but she _knows_ now. Knows the taste of his kiss, the pleasure of his touch.

She whimpers.

"Hmmm?" he rumbles. "Elsie … you're all right, aren't you?"

"Oh, aye," she replies. Her hands find the lapels of his pajama shirt and she fingers the top button. "If I'm honest, I've got a bit carried away."

"Carried away?" he repeats, bewilderment written upon his face.

She looks up at him sheepishly, nibbling her bottom lip, and he understands.

He shakes his head in wonder. _She is his!_ This love is theirs, now, at long last.

Few words are uttered; instead, gasps and giggles add to the resonance of crackling embers as eager hands lift hemlines and lower waistbands until nothing precludes them from being as close as two people can be.

It is early morning; the frost has etched wondrous feathery patterns on the windows. The two in the bed are impervious to the cold.

 _I love you,_ she tells him without words as her hands smooth over his flanks.

 _I've always done,_ he answers with intense dark eyes as their bodies join.

Tears spill from the corners of her eyes. "So much," she whispers. It is an explanation, a declaration. An all-encompassing conclusion of its own.

He would have worried at first. He doesn't now. Instead he smiles, nodding. He knows; he _knows_.

" _A ghràidh … Please,"_ she cries, and he lowers himself carefully, resting the weight of his body upon hers. His instinct is still to ask whether she is alright; she is, after all, so small in comparison to him. But the look in her eyes tells him all he needs to know.

Every moment of his life, and of hers, was to bring them to this one in which the union of hearts and minds is symbolized by the joining of earthly bodies.

She loses herself to him once, twice; he gives himself over to her with a great shudder and yet - paradoxically - by the great mystery that is love, both are strengthened by the act that leaves them gasping for breath and trembling from exertion.

She lies wrapped more in his arms than in the sheets as sunlight streams in through the windows. She sighs contentedly as his fingertips chase the dappled rays across the bare skin of her torso.

"Are you warm enough?" his voice comes as a low rasp against her ear, and the resulting shiver that courses through her body has nothing to do with the temperature.

"Aye, love," is her answer as she turns over her shoulder and presses a kiss to the cleft of his chin. The rasp of his stubble tickles her lips. She pulls a face and they both giggle.

"That was a most splendid way to start the day. Perhaps I should let the fire go out more often," he teases. She loves the way she can feel the rumble of his voice where his chest presses against her back. Much more of this, she muses, and they run the risk of not leaving the bed at all today.

 _Oh, for shame!_ The Crawley family would be scandalized by the notion: the longtime butler of Downton Abbey now lies in bed all day … _in the altogether!_ At this thought she roars with laughter. He looks at her like she has grown a second head until, after some moments, she catches her breath enough to share the joke with him. His shoulders shake and soon he is laughing with such force that tears roll down his cheeks.

She watches him and that strange sensation washes over her once more; the feeling that she has always known him this way. She wonders at the thought as they wrestle together playfully.

 _I have known you before, my love,_ she thinks. _But how?_

With his next words, her perplexity is put to rest.

"Ahh, Elsie," he murmurs, "I always knew it would be like this."

* * *

 _Those lifetimes  
_ _So many lifetimes  
_ _With you_


End file.
